Savour Fare » Vegetables and Sides

Old School Sage Stuffing

Kate — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 01:49:31 +0000

My father didn’t just love tradition, he loved ritual. He wouldn’t just visit the same city over and over again, he would stay at the same hotel, visit the same restaurant, and order the same dishes off the menu. He was especially particular about holidays: not just turkey gravy and stuffing — GIBLET gravy and this bread stuffing. (Although he called it dressing, even though he also insisted on stuffing the turkey with it.) If we were eating Thanksgiving dinner at someone else’s house, my mom always had to roast her own turkey (usually for charity) so we could make giblet gravy and bread stuffing. The man was obsessed.

Thanksgiving morning would see our family gathering around the kitchen table. My father and I would each have a cutting board and a knife — my mother would be standing at the stove, presiding over a large pan of sauteeing vegetables. Dad and I divided up the chopping duties — I took celery and onions, he cubed the loaves of white bread. The kitchen smelled of sage and onions, and we would snitch bits of stuffing — a crust of bread, a cube dipped in the oniony, celery sage butter, before it was ceremoniously added to the turkey, when the smell of poultry and sage would sneak out from the kitchen and fill the whole house.

(...)
Read the rest of Old School Sage Stuffing (440 words)

Essential Potato Salad

Kate — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 19:44:35 +0000

Labor Day weekend is bittersweet, like the end of an affair. Three days of sunshine, of flip-flops, of beaches and barbecue. But Tuesday lurks around the corner, like a raincloud with the smell of ozone to the air. There’s almost a sense of desperation — just one more cookout! — before fall settles in, with its dark evenings, the smell of cinnamon and freshly-sharpened pencils, and its long march to winter.

I’ve been busy collecting summer, whether it’s making just one more fresh fruit pie, canning a batch of tomato jam, downing bottles of rose, or just sneaking outside to enjoy the sunset. I keep getting ideas and checking them off the list: Hollywood Bowl tickets, picnics, Lemonade! And one of my favorite summer foods is potato salad. I wanted to get in one more potato salad before roast potatoes become de rigueur.

I love old fashioned potato salad made by my grandmother, but this isn’t that. I also love newfangled potato salads, but this isn’t that, either. This is potato salad reduced to its essentials — a little mayonnaise, a sprinkle of tart vinegar, the oniony breath of chives, and at the end, a dusting of lemon, to add aroma and color, to wake the tastebuds and make the salad sing. It’s hardly a recipe at all, but it’s well worth making all the same, in this last weekend of summer.
(...)
Read the rest of Essential Potato Salad (174 words)

Serendipity — Grilled Eggplant with Mint

Kate — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 21:46:34 +0000

I often say that I blog what I eat, and it’s true. But it’s also true that when I’m sitting down Saturday morning to make my grocery list, I’m thinking about things I’d like to write about, to share with you. I write about recipes that fit into my life, but I’ve also planned them to fit into the blog. I think about the light, about when I’ll have time to photograph them, or how to serve them.

Isn’t it a saying that life is what happens when you’re making other plans?

Then, there are the other recipes. The ones I just make because I felt like it — because I saw a recipe I wanted to try, or some great food in the markets, or it fit into a meal I was planning. This is that time. We had family over for dinner Sunday night because I felt like making peach cobbler (for the blog, natch. Not enough fruit desserts this summer!), and we couldn’t eat an entire peach cobbler by ourselves (OK, we could, but we SHOULDN’T). So invitations went out to my mother, my cousin, my aunt. Casual. And since we couldn’t just serve peach cobbler for dinner (well we could, but we SHOULDN’T), I picked up some sausages to grill, and then I saw these gorgeous eggplants at the market. I remembered a recipe — so simple it was barely a recipe — in the Canal House cookbook (I forget which volume) and we threw these on the grill with the sausages. I almost forgot to put them on, but I was looking for some parsley in my refrigerator and found the eggplant, and it was the work of a moment to get them ready for the grill.

When the moment came, they smelled so good, and looked so good I just snapped the photograph above. No styling, no planning. Just good eating. And they were good. They were so good, I wanted to share them with you.
As for the peach cobbler? Well, it was too dark by the time we ate it, and it disappeared so quickly I didn’t have time to shoot it in the morning. It was good peach cobbler. I’ll just have to make it again.

That’s what I get for making plans.

As a note: a moment can be serendipitous, but it can also be heartwrenching. A couple of weeks ago, blogger Jennifer Perillo lost her husband in just such a moment. I told you about it, and the Peanut Butter Pie made in his honor. I know from experience that one of the difficult things about a loss like that is that you have to deal with the real world while you’re trying to deal with heartbreak. The mortgage still has to be paid. The kids still have to go to the doctor. Groceries still need to be on the table. A new non-profit organization, Bloggers without Borders, has begun a fund to help Jennie and her girls through this, to make the mundane a little easier. You can read about the project here, and if you feel moved, donate through the badge below:

Recipe
Serendipitous Grilled Eggplant
With much thanks to Canal House Cooking
4-5 Thin Japanese Eggplant
Some good glugs of olive oil
1 lemon
Salt (I used smoked salt because a) I had it and b) we were cooking on a gas grill. Regular salt also good.)
A small bunch of mint

Wash the eggplant, slice them in half lengthwise, cut off the stem end.

Place the eggplant in a bowl with a good glug of olive oil and the juice from half your lemon. Sprinkle them with some salt, and toss to coat.

Grill the eggplant over medium heat, cut side down for 5 minutes, then flip and grill for 5 minutes more.

Squeeze the juice from the other half of the lemon over the eggplant, and scatter a shower of chopped mint leaves.

How to do summer — Chopped Caprese Salad

Kate — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 22:34:13 +0000

How to do summer, in 19 easy steps:

1) Chill the Vinho Verde.
2) Pack the kids off to grandma’s, or distract them with a movie, in a darkened room.
3) Head out to the garden. Stop to smell the roses. Get distracted by the hammock. Lie down, for just a minute.
4) Take a nap, or not.
5) Remember your original objective. Return to the vegetable garden.
6) Marvel at the size of the zucchini. Decide not to pick one, just to see how big it will get.
7) Tomatoes! Pull out the ripe ones, testing each one for weight and ease of separation. Peer into the cool depths of the tomato patch. Don’t miss any!
Eat one of the cherry tomatoes, just because you can’t resist. Let the sun-warmed fruit pop in your mouth. Eat one of the heirlooms like an apple. Breathe in the scent of the tomato vines.
9) Return to the hammock. Eat another tomato, then another.
10) Take your bounty to the kitchen. Turn on some mellow music. Get out a big bowl.

11) Rinse the tomatoes, and chop them up. Put them in the bowl, then taste the sweet tart juice on your fingers. (wash your hands)
12) Take a lump of fresh mozzarella out of the refrigerator. Chop it into cubes; throw it into the bowl. Some caprese salads are stacked, but who has time for that fussiness?
13) Pull a few sprigs of basil from your windowsill garden. Crush them lightly in your fingers, and take a deep breath. Wrap the basil leaves into a neat package, then sliver it into ribbons. Add to your bowl.
14) Humming a little, pull out the good olive oil. No not that bottle, the GOOD one. Drizzle it over your tomatoes. Add a sprinkling of sea salt.
15) Dig your fingers into the bowl, and gently toss your salad. Find a big spoon.
16) Grab a couple of pretty plates, a couple of pretty napkins. Take them out onto the shady deck, and set the table. Fold the napkins in half to serve as makeshift placemats.
17) Drizzle a little balsamic vinegar over your salad, and bring it out to the deck with a couple of tall glasses of lemonade, cut with fizzy water. Call your spouse.
18) Eat, enjoy, talk, laze. Hear the humming of the bees, feel the warmth of the day, taste the creamy cheese with the sweet and sour tomatoes. Kiss your spouse. Live in the moment.

19) Remember the wine. Pour yourself a glass. Share it. Finish the bottle.

Japanese Ramen Salad

Kate — Fri, 20 May 2011 22:46:37 +0000

It’s far too cold in Los Angeles this week to even think of having a picnic, or eating a salad. We’ve had rain and fog and nighttime temperatures in the 40′s. I’ve been digging out my thick sweaters and my boots and thinking of building a fire in the fireplace. It’s MAY, people! I live in Los Angeles! Apparently Mother Nature didn’t get the message.

Regardless of the weather, Memorial Day is around the corner! Which means PICNICS! And POTLUCKS! Or mayonnaise slowly congealing in the hot sun until it becomes liquid death, and “I’m a vegetarian/lactose intolerant/in a neurotic relationship with pasta.” Well, given these parameters, have I got the dish for you. I got it from my friend Corrine (of the apparently departed casavillecooking) who deals with dairy and egg allergies in her family, and is therefore a great source of vegan and dairy-free recipes. This dish is a perfect potluck dish — it’s vegan (or not, depending on your additions), dairy-free, egg-free, and not too starchy. You can make it gluten-free by replacing the ramen noodles with rice noodles fried in a little oil. It’s also easy and quick to make, can be scaled up or down, and can be adapted to suit your tastes and your audience. With no mayonnaise, it will hold for a few hours without refrigeration (it also makes a great brown bag lunch dish). And did I mention it’s delicious? Flavorful, kid friendly — it even features healthy vegetables!

So really, what are you waiting for?

Oh yeah, the recipe.

Recipe
Japanese Ramen Salad
Adapted from Casaville Cooking
Salad:
8 green onions, finely sliced
1 lb shredded green cabbage
two 3 oz packages of ramen noodles, broken
1/4 cup toasted sliced almonds
1/4 cup toasted sesame seeds
6-8 oz. firm seasoned tofu, cut into cubes OR 6-8 oz. cooked chicken, cut into cubes (optional)

Dressing:

Place chopped cabbage, green onions, sesame seeds and almonds in a large bowl. Toss with dressing and cover overnight. Toss before serving

Dressing

3 T sugar
1/3 cup olive oil or peanut oil
6 T rice vinegar
1 tsp sesame oil
Salt and Pepper to taste

In a large bowl, combine scallions, cabbage, ramen noodles, almonds, sesame seeds, and tofu or chicken. Toss lightly to combine. Combine all ingredients for dressing, toss with salad. This can be made in advance.

Gifts from the Kitchen: Pear and Vanilla Preserves

Kate — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 20:13:29 +0000

I was very sad to have missed the summer jam season this year. With all the craziness around buying the house and moving, I never got around to putting up plum jam, or strawberry balsamic, or peach and basil, and my stash from last year is getting dangerously low. Fortunately, I still have a few seasonal fruit tricks up my sleeve. Like this pear jam with vanilla beans, which will make your heart swell with domestic pride and impress anyone you care to give it to.

Jam seems terribly intimidating, but really, it’s not. Yes, there are a few basic steps you need to go through to make sure it’s safe to eat (or really to store) but the risks of contaminated jam are much lower than for canned vegetables because both the acid and the sugar in jam act as preservatives. You don’t need any special equipment, other than jars (I get mine at the local hardware store — you can reuse jars, but make sure to get new lids, which you can buy separately) and a big pot to boil them in. An hour’s worth of effort (and not MUCH effort, really – most of it involves occasional stirring or waiting for the water bath to boil.)

And the result? Golden jars of sunshine, lined up in your pantry, making you proud, waiting to be doled out to deserving friends and family this holiday season.

And if you think that you or your family and friends don’t eat jam, here are some serving ideas:

Stir it into oatmeal
Top crackers with brie and a dollop of pear jam
Spoon it atop ice cream
Plop into pastry shells to make jam tarts
SCONES

And there’s always toast. We’re quite fond of it in our house.

Recipe
Pear and Vanilla Jam

3 lbs ripe Bartlett pears
12 oz. granulated sugar
1/2 vanilla bean, slit lengthwise
Juice of 1 lemon
1 pouch liquid pectin

Peel the pears, core them and cut them into small chunks. Place in a large saucepan with the remaining ingredients. (I like my pear jam chunky to preserve some of that grainy “pear” texture -if you don’t, mash them a bit in the pan). Cook over medium heat, stirring frequently, until the jam begins to gel –test it by dropping a spoonful on a cold dish and dragging the spoon (or your finger, after it’s cooled a bit) through it — if it leaves a trail that takes a few seconds to be filled in, it’s ready.

Meanwhile, heat 4 1/2 pint jars in a stock pot full of boiling water. When your jam is ready, pull the jars out of the boiling water and fill them with hot jam. Leave 1/4 inch space between the top of the jam and the top of the jars, and run a clean (pref sterilized) knife around the edge of the jars to let any air bubbles escape). Wipe the top of the jars with a clean damp towel to ensure a seal. Cover the jars with the lids and the rings, and return them to the boiling water, making sure the water covers the jars entirely. Cover the pan, and let boil briskly for 10 minutes. Remove the jars from the pan, and let them cool to room temperature.

Spicy Sweet Potato Gratin — a different sort of Sweet Potato

Kate — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:35:44 +0000

Despite having a decent reputation for cooking, a killer turkey recipe and not one but TWO autumnal table runners, I haven’t hosted Thanksgiving since 2004, and I’m thrilled about that. One of the reasons we moved to Los Angeles back in the day was to give our (then unconceived) children the experience of growing up with family holidays, and for Thanksgiving we always have a place at the table at the house of my parents, my grandmother, or one of my aunts. And since family meals in my family are always pot luck, I get the fun of cooking what I want for Thanksgiving without the stress of worrying that I don’t have enough wine glasses, or bringing in extra chairs from the garage.

And while my contribution to the family Thanksgiving varies, I always always make these sweet potatoes. They are not gooey with brown sugar, or covered in marshmallows. What they are is creamy and spicy and sweet and smoky. They’re also easy and practically foolproof and, depending on how liberally you apply the cayenne, almost universally popular.

I never understood why so many sweet potato recipes added additional sweetness, in the form of brown sugar, or orange juice, or marshmallows. Sweet potatoes are already sweet — what I want is to balance the sweetness with saltiness. I like plain baked sweet potatoes with butter and salt, but this dish, with the layers of flavor from the spices, and the richness of the butter and cream and the mellow background of sweet potato, just sings.

Fortunately, making them is a snap. I like to use my Benriner Japanese Mandoline Slicer, which makes the slicing quick and the slices uniform, but PLEASE use the finger guard or you will do what I did LAST Thanksgiving and slice the tip off your finger. True story. Once the potatoes are sliced, you just layer them in a buttered gratin dish, dab each layer with a little more butter (holiday food, not health food), sprinkle with cayenne, smoked paprika, salt and pepper, then pour cream over the whole thing and bake.

A few years ago my grandmother, who is a very, um, traditional cook, hosted Thanksgiving. I told her I was bringing these sweet potatoes and she balked. “My friend Jeannie is coming, ” she said. “And Jean is midwestern. Why don’t you make them with some nice orange juice?” Well, Jeannie is midwestern like Annie Oakley is midwestern, and she had second helpings of sweet potatoes. And even my grandmother enjoyed them.

Recipe
Smoky Spicy Sweet Potato Gratin
3 medium sweet potatoes
3-4 Tablespoons butter, at room temperature
1/2-1 teaspoons cayenne pepper
1-2 teaspoons sweet Spanish smoked paprika
salt and pepper
1 1/2 cups heavy cream

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Peel the sweet potatoes, and using a mandoline, a food processor or a sharp knife and a lot of patience, slice them thinly into even rounds. Set some of the prettiest and most perfect rounds aside for the top layer.

Butter a 14 inch gratin dish. Layer the sweet potatoes in concentric overlapping circles (or ovals) over the bottom of the gratin dish. Dot with a few dabs of butter, sprinkle with cayenne (more is obviously spicier), smoked paprika, a pinch of salt (go lightly on the salt — the smokiness of the paprika adds a salty impression) and a few grinds of black pepper. Repeat with the next layer, and the spices and the butter, until you reach the top, where you’ll use your reserved sweet potatoes.

Pour the cream over the dish, cover tightly with foil and bake 30 minutes. Remove the cover, bake an additional 30 minutes. Serve warm. (I happen to love this cold, but it doesn’t reheat well because the cream tends to separate. You can make it entirely in advance except for the baking part, and pop it in the oven an hour before dinner is served).

Serves 6-8

Sweet and Spicy Roasted Pumpkin Seeds — Happy Halloween!

Kate — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 22:00:52 +0000

As an adult, I am wary of jack-o-lanterns. You see, I had a traumatic jack-o-lantern experience in college, and I’m still suffering the psychological wounds. As a member of the Senior Class Council, it was my job (together with my roommmate’s) to plan the annual Senior Class Halloween Masquerade Ball. We planned to turn the college dining hall (a gorgeous, soaring Palladian space) into a veritable autumn wonderland, complete with hundreds of twinkling fairy lights and pumpkin lanterns. A week or so before the ball, we visited the pumpkin patch and loaded up my boyfriend’s little blue Ford Festiva with over 50 pumpkins, and carried them up the stairs to my dorm room to await carving the following week. And there they sat, until I noticed a smell. And tried to pick up one of the pumpkins, only to have its flesh dissolve on the floor. The pumpkins were rotting. And slimy. And the stench of those pumpkins was entrenched in my dorm room for quite some time. Talk about a horror story! I still have nightmares about it.

But now I am the mother of a three year old, and to the three year old set, Halloween is a BIG DEAL. There have to be spiderwebs and princess costumes and candy (natch) but most of all there have to be jack-o-lanterns. So I overcame my pumpkin phobia, scraped out the insides with a metal spoon into a bowl (I’m not touching the slimy stuff — the memories!) and carved not one, not two, but three Jack-o-lanterns (OK, Ken, he of the former Ford Festiva, carved one, but I scraped out all three).

Of course, three year olds being the tiny tyrants they are, having three jack-o-lanterns was not enough — she wanted to roast pumpkin seeds (I blame preschool for putting these notions into her head). So, because I love her dearly, my gorge rising, I sorted through the bowl of slimy, smelly pumpkin guts (OK they weren’t that smelly — these pumpkins had been living outside instead of near a radiator), and separated out the seeds. Now that, my friends, is maternal love. And then I roasted them, and thanks to the magic of spices, even thought they tasted pretty darn good!

To roast pumpkin seeds, first you need to get as much pumpkin goo off as possible, which involves pulling them off the squash, then soaking them in water and picking out any remaining goo, then drying them — first in a colander, then in the oven. When they’re dry, you can toss them with seasonings, and roast them until they’re toasty and crunchy, a halloween treat worth savoring. These have a sweet salty balance with a nice kick of piquancy from cayenne pepper. They’re so good, they almost erase the horror of my collegiate nightmares.

Recipe
Sweet and Spicy Roasted Pumpkin Seeds
1 cup pumpkin seeds
2 Tablespoons melted butter
2 Tablespoons brown sugar
1 teaspoon worcestershire sauce
1/4 teaspoon cumin
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1 large pinch sea salt
1 small pinch cayenne pepper
Wash the pumpkin seeds, remove any traces of pumpkin flesh, drain them in a colander and then spread on a cookie sheet lined with tin foil and dry in a 300 degree oven for about 15 minutes. The seeds should be dry and crisp.

Combine the melted butter, the brown sugar, the cumin, the garlic, the salt, the cayenne pepper and the worcestershire sauce in a medium bowl. Toss the pumpkin seeds in the mixture to coat. Raise the oven heat to 375 degrees, spread the spiced pumpkin seeds back out on your tinfoil, and roast for 8-10 minutes. Let cool, and enjoy.

The only Guacamole Recipe You’ll Ever Need

Kate — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 14:59:02 +0000

With Labor Day weekend coming up, and outdoor parties and barbecues on the horizon, it’s good to have a classic guacamole recipe in your back pocket.

Although I don’t have brothers or sisters, I never felt lonely when I was growing up. My mother and father had siblings to spare, and my parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins gathered often — to celebrate birthdays, holidays, half birthdays, television events. One of the main reasons I wanted to move back to Los Angeles from New York was to give the Nuni (then just a twinkle in her parents’ eye) that family and community that I grew up with.

The menu varies — my mother makes mean spare ribs, my aunt often grills sausages. My grandmother’s fallback is barbecued chicken, and the sweet spicy taste of her favored brand of barbecue sauce takes me immediately to childhood summer evenings, shivering in a wet bathing suit while the scent of charcoal smoke fills the air. But whatever the main dish was, we always began with guacamole.

If you grow up in California, avocados are in your blood. They’re available at every roadside stand and farmers’ market, and you probably know someone with a tree in their back yard. And as a result, they show up everywhere — in a green salad, on a BLT, or even on a hamburger. But nothing shows off the nutty flavor and luscious texture of an avocado quite like guacamole.

This is my aunt Suzi’s guacamole recipe. It’s easy and quick to make, spicy and salty, with perfect creamy chunks of avocado, tiny bursts of tomato and the scent of cilantro and lime. To me, it’s the ur guacamole — the one all others aspire to. She makes hers in a molcajete, the traditional lava rock pestle, but I’ve found a cuisinart works just as well. With a few tortilla chips and a glass of white wine, nothing says home to me quite like this guacamole.

Recipe
Guacamole
Always use Hass avocados, the kind with nearly black, very bumpy skin. Their flavor and texture is superior. This recipe is quite spicy (depending on the size and heat of your chiles) — you can reduce the chiles to cut back on the heat, or substitute the serrano for jalapeno.

1/4 small white onion
2 serrano chiles, halved and seeds removed
4 large sprigs fresh cilantro, leaves only
Juice of 1/2 lime
1/4 tsp. salt
2 large Hass avocados
1 large tomato, finely chopped
Additional salt to taste

In a small food processor*, combine onion, chiles, cilantro, lime juice and salt, and process until smooth and liquid. (If using a molcajete, chop the onion and chiles first, then grind with cilantro, juice and salt until smooth).

Cut the avocados in half. Remove pits (I usually smack them with a chef’s knife to bury the edge in the pit, then twist to remove), and scoop the flesh out into a small bowl. Mash with a fork. Don’t let the avocados get too smooth – some remaining chunks are good. Mix in the chile cilantro mixture, add chopped tomatoes, and stir until combined. Salt to taste — I think this guacamole tastes best when it’s a little on the salty side. Serve with tortilla chips.

*I received a cuisinart mini chopper for free from Cuisinart as an attended of Blogher Food 2009.

California Pizza Kitchen Barbecue Chicken Chopped Salad

Kate — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 12:48:23 +0000

Back in the day when I lived in New York, I was more than a little homesick. I pined and yearned for my home state of California, and pounced on everything I could find that reminded me of home. I wore flipflops at the very first sign of spring in the city (and narrowly avoided frostbite in the process), I saw the movie Sideways 3 times in the theaters, and bought the DVD when it was released; I traveled all the way to TENTH AVENUE to find a tiny taqueria in the back of a bodega that sold real tacos; I listened to the Beach Boys on repeat. So you can imagine how happy I was when the last apartment we lived in in Manhattan was right next door to a California Pizza Kitchen (it also had a balcony, which means my poor husband was sent outside to grill in 50 degree weather. He was happy when we finally moved to California because I immediately started wearing black and wanting to see foreign films in a desperate cling to my New York days). Now I realize that California Pizza Kitchen is about as truly Californian as Red Lobster is truly a restaurant of Maine, but I was desperate.

And the truth is, I kind of liked their food. Sure, peanut butter is not my FAVORITE topping on pizza, and some of those combinations were just weird, but the barbecue chicken chopped salad was quite tasty and quickly became my go to order.

And then I moved to L.A., and I could get REAL Mexican food, and if I want fancy pizza I could go to Spago, where it all began. And California Pizza Kitchen was no longer convenient, and when you actually live in California, it’s probably not something you’re going to go out of your way to visit. So no more CPK for me.

But I missed that chicken salad. Salty, crunchy, a little sweet, with the tang of barbecue sauce and the mellowness of ranch dressing. I WANTED that chicken salad. So I decided to make my own.
(...)
Read the rest of California Pizza Kitchen Barbecue Chicken Chopped Salad (495 words)